(3/29/99)
An e-mail virus named Melissa crashed more than 100-thousand computers
across the country today.
The virus infected systems in hundreds of businesses.
As NBC's Chris Clackum reports, now the FBI has been called in to
investigate.
A seemingly benign piece of e-mail with the heading "important message"
and possibly from someone you know could, in fact, be the computer virus
dubbed "Melissa". It showed up in e-mail systems all over the country
Monday morning and infected computers in business giants like Dupont,
Lockheed, the North Dakota State government.
Michael Vatis, of the F.B.I., says, "The Melissa virus has the capibility of
causing a denial of service and
degraded computer network service at any affected locations."
Even Uncle Sam's computers have been infected and although the F.B.I. won't
say which agencies, there is some anxiety.
Kathy Fithen, with the Computer Emergency Response Team, says,
"We're very concerned about confidential private sensitive information
inadvertently leaking out."
Attached to the so called "important message" is a microsoft word
document file containing the virus. opening it infects your machine and
sends the message on to the first fifty names in your e-mail address
book. melissa can then steal other documents you've written in your word
processor and e-mail them out to people at random. the fbi is says all
this amounts to a serious crime.
Vatis says, "The FBI is investigating the origin of the virus in an attempt to
find
its source. The transmission of the virus is a crime and a potential
felony."
A number of anti-virus outfits offer programs to detect and reject the
virus. But people are advised to protect themselves by not opening e-mail
attachments until further notice.
